


Four Conversations Kyouya and Haruhi Never Had (And One They Did)

by kay_cricketed



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, This is ridiculous, kyouya asserts his authority
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-08
Updated: 2009-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-19 01:29:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_cricketed/pseuds/kay_cricketed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Kyouya and Haruhi are like ninja, always battling each other over Suoh Tamaki whether they mean to or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Conversations Kyouya and Haruhi Never Had (And One They Did)

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously some of these conversations that didn't happen are meant to be crack. It's the one that does happen that matters.

**I. From The Tools At Hand**

 

The fireworks are not quite done melting into the sky when Haruhi corners Kyouya in, of all places, one of the men’s bathrooms.

The students are loud and happy outside, like they are in another world. She hopes the twins hadn’t seen her sneak away, but Kyouya has not been alone all evening, and she took the chance she saw when he broke away from the crowd momentarily. And Haruhi knows she could wait for Kyouya outside (she had, for three minutes, to give him privacy), but Kyouya is like a snake. He will escape if there is room for it.

So Haruhi closes the bathroom door and blocks it with her shoe.

Kyouya, drying his hands on a towel, raises an eyebrow at her.

“ _Senpai_ ,” she says, “I have a question for you.”

“It must have been a very pressing one.”

“It is,” Haruhi agrees calmly. She gets right to it. “Why did you send me after Tamaki- _senpai_?”

Kyouya makes a noncommittal noise, crumpling the paper towel and tossing it in the wastebasket. Then he says, “You’ve already guessed correctly, I assume. Time was of the essence. The twins are always a good bet, but they are unpredictable and so cannot offer a guarantee. I needed something better.”

She watches him talk, every inch of his body casual and guarded. She won’t stop him, not when he’s being honest, more or less, for once.

“To send an enemy down to his knees in one blow,” continues Kyouya, “you must strike at their weak point. Or, you give him an offer he cannot refuse.”

“I don’t appreciate being used, Kyouya- _senpai_.”

He simply looks at her: _But you would do it again._

Haruhi glances away, fists clenching into her dress. “Do you think,” she forces out, words bulky and distant to her ears, “that he wouldn’t listen to you?”

Footsteps. Kyouya puts a hand on her shoulder and moves her firmly away from the doorway. He keeps his hand there, fingers hard and digging into bone and flesh, long enough to impart his last words with the same weight. “I think that I can’t afford for him to hear it.”

 

**II. That Which Is Owed**

 

She sets the tea down by his elbow with a clatter; her training has smoothed out many of the kinks in Haruhi’s ignorance, but she will never learn perfect silence. Kyouya doesn’t mind. It is seen as endearing by most of their customers, and so he tolerates it.

“Haruhi,” he says. “Sit with me, please.”

“Huh? Oh. Of course.” And she does, beside him instead of across as he’d indicated, but then that is just another staple of her ignorance. Kyouya smiles at her with calculation and decides it’s no matter.

“How are you liking the club?”

Haruhi tries not to make a face. It’s very obvious. “It’s… fine. It’s a little weird. I don’t get it.”

“Oh?”

“It seems like a big waste of time.”

“The rich have nothing to waste but time,” Kyouya tells her, although he knows a little better than that. His brothers work themselves to the bone, and Kyouya spends more of his nights burning the oil than he does in bed. And still, it’s never enough. “Do you find it enjoyable at all?”

She doesn’t know how to answer that. Kyouya watches her fingers twitch uncertainly, as though searching for something to grasp, to make sense of it. “I don’t know,” Haruhi finally says. “Do you?”

A very blunt, but apt, question. Kyouya sips at his coffee. “In a fashion, we all do,” he tells her. “Hunny- _senpai_ enjoys eating cake. Mori- _senpai_ enjoys watching Hunny- _senpai_. The twins enjoy being able to act up and shock people without damaging them too badly. And of course, Tamaki enjoys all of it, from choosing teacups to acting out elaborate dramas, from pleasing women to playing childish games. He’s an idiot like that.”

Haruhi makes a smile shape with her mouth, but it’s not quite a smile. She does this often. “But you didn’t answer my question, _senpai_.”

She’s more clever than she seems. “Not at all,” Kyouya counters gravely. “I’m in the same position as you.” He tries not to look at Tamaki and mostly succeeds.

“What’s that?” Her eyebrows draw inward.

“Paying off a debt.”

 

**III. Don’t Mess With Mine**

 

Kyouya manages to pass Haruhi a note in secret during the last meeting of the host club before the weekend. She reads it, nods slightly to him, and folds it into a precisely measured square. The dance begins.

They meet that Saturday in a tiny café with potted begonias outside of its green door. Kyouya orders for Haruhi; she will not know what kind of cake and coffee to choose, otherwise. It is not a gesture of gratitude or graciousness, however, and from the slightly grim set of Haruhi’s mouth as she slides into the seat across from him, she knows it, too.

Good. They know exactly what they are here for, then.

“Kyouya- _senpai_ ,” says Haruhi.

He assumes the stance for battle, folding his hands in front of him. “Haruhi.”

There is silence before the first strike.

“I don’t mean to step over any boundaries,” starts Haruhi, but Kyouya’s look cuts her to the quick. It is deadly and all business.

“Haruhi, you are a vital addition to the host club. You wield an unconscious ability to control not only Tamaki, but the twins, as well. It has been of use. For that reason, I’ve let certain things pass.”

“I understand,” she acknowledges, sullen.

“Make no mistake, then. This struggle for dominance is futile. You do not have the ability or the willpower needed to keep reign of this group. You can play this game as far as you like, but understand there is no hope of victory, and the penalty for your failure would be far too high for you.”

Haruhi sighs. “Say it straight, Kyouya- _senpai_. It’s early.”

“They are _my_ bitches, not yours, and to use an appropriate commoner colloquialism that you are _very_ familiar with: if you break it, you buy it.”

 

**IV. Honestly**

 

“Are you in love with Tamaki- _senpai_?”

Kyouya looks at Haruhi and, for a moment, considers how damaging it would be to her physical and mental health if he slammed his clipboard against her head. He decides it’s not worth the medical fees. More importantly, he actually likes her.

Still. _Honestly_.

“Tamaki and I share a unique relationship,” he informs her, scratching down an estimate of how much it would cost to exchange the French pillow slips for something more Swedish. “It is a mutually beneficial arrangement, in which I gain a profit and a deeper well of patience than I was born with, and in which Tamaki is protected from running out into ongoing traffic at inopportune times and dying from his own stupidity. I sometimes wonder if I’m getting the worse end of the bargain, but all in all, I find it agreeable. So in a sense, you could say I love him, but you’d be more correct in saying I _greatly enjoy_ the merits of our contact.”

Haruhi looks at him.

Okay.

“I’m tapping that,” he tells her, “and it’s _very_ hot.”

 

**V. The Conversation They Did Have**

 

“Will you always be around?” asks Tamaki, twisting on the sofa so that he can look them both in the eye. His tie is crooked, and his smile a tentative curve. Sometimes, like today, their ( _the club’s_ ) idiot has questions whose answers are both relevant and hurtful. This is such a question. “Even after we’ve all graduated and we’re doing different things, you’ll be around for me, won’t you?”

Kyouya knows this of Haruhi: _She will say yes, the stupid girl_.

Haruhi knows this of Kyouya: _He will say yes, the rotten liar_.

“Do you want anymore coffee, Kyouya- _senpai_?”

“Please,” he tells her, passing over his cup.

“I wish,” Haruhi says, lifting the thermos, “that I could take it as black as you.”


End file.
